SAN FRANCISCO – October 31, 2026 -- Server-class Ethernet NIC revenues rose by $2 billion in calendar-year 2024, according to the latest report from Crehan Research. Market revenues have doubled in just three years, even though one of those years was weak because of a general market inventory correction.
Data center buyers shift more networking budget to NICs
Crehan's analysis shows data center customers are spending a greater portion of their networking budgets on Ethernet NICs. That share has risen even as the overall budgets grew robustly.
Seamus Crehan, president of Crehan Research, said data center Ethernet NICs have moved from low-cost commodity chips soldered onto volume server motherboards to high-performance, differentiated add-in cards. These cards now handle a multitude of high-value network functions, including some formerly run by CPUs.
Combined 100GbE, 200GbE and 400GbE NIC sales jump more than 50%
Demand for the highest-speed NICs surged during 2024. Combined 100GbE, 200GbE and 400GbE NIC shipments and revenues each grew by more than 50%.
Generative AI drove part of the high-speed demand, Crehan said. Other areas also contributed to the growth, including general cloud compute and storage.